Spartans' Pitching Dominates in 7-1 Victory

Wednesday, March 25

East Lansing, Mich.

3:05 PM

Michigan State University

11-11

Oakland

3-15

Oakland

Michigan State

Hughes went 2-for-4 at the plate with two runs scored.

3/25/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

March 25, 2015

Box Score

EAST LANSING, Mich. - The Michigan State baseball team defeated Oakland, 7-1, at McLane Baseball Stadium on Wednesday afternoon to win their second consecutive game and improve to 11-11 on the year. The Spartan pitching staff held the Golden Grizzlies to one run on five hits, striking out 11 hitters while walking just one.

Starter Andrew Gonzalez threw six strong innings in the win, holding Oakland scoreless on three hits. Mike Brosseau's double in the third was the only runner that Gonzalez allowed to reach scoring position in his second win of the season.

"Gonzalez is a very talent kid who has an extremely bright future ahead of him," said head coach Jake Boss. "He has thrown well in just about every opportunity he has had this year. He got deeper into the game and we felt like we could have gotten another inning out of him, but we felt like we needed to get some other guys some innings."

Redshirt freshman Dakota Mekkes came on in relief of Gonzalez to start the seventh and locked down the Golden Grizzles. Mekkes struck out the first four batters he faced and sent down six straight in a perfect two innings of work. Brandon Hughes moved from right field to the mound for the final inning to get the final three outs.

"To Dakota's credit, he has not had a lot of chances to pitch, not because of anything he hasn't done, it is just the pitching has been really good," said Boss. "He had an opportunity today and was ready to go. I give him a lot of credit because that is not easy to do sometimes."

The Spartans scored runs in three consecutive innings starting in the second that allowed them to jump out to a 6-0 lead.

Ryan Richardson and Hughes got things going with back-to-back singles in the bottom of the second inning and Kory Young later capitalized with a hard single in between third and short that scored Hughes from third base to give MSU an early 1-0 lead.

MSU tacked on two more in the third inning with RBIs from Richardson and Zack McGuire. With runners on first and third, Richardson laid down a bunt and Mark Weist took off for home from third on contact. Weist slid in safely to beat OU pitcher Collin Gee's throw to the plate. Later in the inning, McGuire ripped a single down the left field line that scored Blaise Salter, extending the lead to 3-0.

McGuire ended the day 3-for-4 at the plate with two singles and a double to go along with two RBIs.

Michigan State capitalized on three walks in the fourth frame to add three more runs to its total. Weist hit an RBI double to left and eventually came around to score his second run of the afternoon on a sac fly by Richardson, who had two RBIs on the day. Cam Gibson also scored on wild pitch in the inning.

The Spartans return to action this weekend at McLane Baseball Stadium in their Big Ten home opener. The series will take place on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, with all games starting at 1:05 p.m. ET.